Hoping A Day Good For Daughters May Also Be Good For Mothers

April 23, 1993|By Ellen Goodman , Washington Post Writers Group

BOSTON — Remember the last time you brought your daughter to work? The baby sitter was sick. You parked her bassinet near the desk. It was a no-school day. You sat her in a corner with a bunch of magic markers.

You showed her the vending machines. You introduced her to everyone. You kept her out of their way. You tried to get your job done, anyway.

Well, next Wednesday she may get a very different sort of experience. The Ms. Foundation for Women has designated April 28 as ''Take Our Daughters to Work Day.'' The mission is to get parents, guardians and teachers to expose 9- to 15-year-old girls to the work world of our present and their future.

This one-day special is part of an effort to counteract the dismal news from psychologists about the sinking expectations of adolescent girls. Somewhere after fourth grade, we are told, girls' horizons and self-esteem seem to collapse. The organizers hope that Wednesday thousands of girls will get a positive look at the future and a better answer to the ambiguous question, ''Who do you think you are?''

But if this isn't loading the agenda too much, I am hoping for one other thing. I'm hoping that a day that's good for daughters may also be good for mothers.

During the past years, it has occurred to me that many of us who have worked and mothered - either consecutively or at the same time - have not always been the kind of models we wanted to be. Our daughters have learned that we and, therefore, they can work. But they may not have learned that we and, therefore, they can like work.

The mothers I know are often vocal about the stress of work. But they are often quiet about the pleasures. Indeed, my own small, non-scientific sample suggests that the more mothers find enjoyment and meaning in their work, the less they may say so to their kids.

I think we are witnessing another variation on the theme of guilt. A few weeks ago, a mother told me that she had carefully arranged her work schedule around her children's school schedule. So carefully, it turned out, that her 9- and 7-year-olds didn't know their mother had a job at all.

Jill Ker Conway, the scholar and editor of Written by Herself, says that working mothers tell different stories about work to their sons and daughters. They tend to tell their sons what exciting things happened at work that day. ''They tell their daughters how tired they are.''

For my own part, I remember when one of the few benefits of divorce for the mother of a small child was a curious diminution in guilt about working. I had to work. So do millions of other single mothers.

In the past decade, more and more mothers in

two-parent families have joined the ranks of have-tos. They have gone to work because they need the second paycheck. In some perverse ways, need cuts through ambivalence.

When we are driven to work by sheer necessity, we can tell ourselves and our children: Of course, I would rather be home with you, but I HAVE to go to work. But what do those children learn about work? That loving your work is impossible?

To this day, many mothers who have an economic choice deal with their job as if it were an illicit affair. It becomes an emotional secret, as if work-love competed with child-love. But what do our children learn? That enjoying your work is a source of pride or shame?

I am not underestimating the stress of balancing work and family. I earned my stress stripes the hard way and I'll keep them. I know all about life on the overload cycle. I am also wholly aware that for many, many women (and men) work is drudgery. That the best thing about a job may be just having one. But we don't want that for our children.

We want our daughters to have choices. We want them to make those choices. That may not happen if we send them very different messages: that we have no choice. Especially if we derive comfort from that.

So, if you can't take a daughter to the office, the shop, the factory, on Wednesday, take her to a shift at the kitchen table. Tell her what's good about work - the accomplishment or the friendships. Take a pay stub and tell her what you do with it.

If you work at home, tell her what you did before, how you decided this change, what happens next. If you don't like your job, tell her what work you would like. If she tells you what she wants, listen, and for gawdsakes, take it seriously. Reality, after all, can do its own dirty work.

When you tell your daughter what makes work meaningful, you may be reminding someone else: you. And when you take a daughter to work, you may even see work through another, clearer pair of eyes: hers.